AERONAUTICS: Fog Lights

Fog-shrouded lights which failed to guide Commander Richard Byrd to Le Bourget flying field would have been plainly visible had they been of the type recently invented. A row of these new lights would have been discernible for 20 miles as small but distinct red buttons, even through the heaviest fog.

So, last week, claimed Inventor David Machlett, 26, of Long Island City, N.Y., Cornell graduate (1922). His device consists essentially in a hairpin-shaped vacuum tube, filled with neon gas, and having caesium reflectors. The fog-piercing properties depend on the fact that the light has an extremely long wave length.